The Right Hon. didn't seem any too well pleased.
"Don't tease it!" he said.
"It teased me," I said.
The swan extended another eight feet of neck and gave an imitation of
steam escaping from a leaky pipe. The rain continued to lash down with
what you might call indescribable fury, and I was sorry that in the
agitation inseparable from shinning up a stone wall at practically a
second's notice I had dropped the raincoat which I had been bringing
with me for my fellow rooster. For a moment I thought of offering him
mine, but wiser counsels prevailed.
"How near did it come to getting you?" I asked.
"Within an ace," replied my companion, gazing down with a look of
marked dislike. "I had to make a very rapid spring."
The Right Hon. was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been
poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say "When!" and the
picture he conjured up, if you know what I mean, was rather pleasing.
"It is no laughing matter," he said, shifting the look of dislike to me.
"Sorry."
"I might have been seriously injured."
"Would you consider bunging another brick at the bird?"
"Do nothing of the sort. It will only annoy him."
"Well, why not annoy him? He hasn't shown such a dashed lot of
consideration for our feelings."
The Right Hon. now turned to another aspect of the matter.
"I cannot understand how my boat, which I fastened securely to the
stump of a willow tree, can have drifted away."
"Dashed mysterious."
"I begin to suspect that it was deliberately set loose by some
mischievous person."
"Oh, I say, no, hardly likely, that. You'd have seen them doing it."
"No, Mr. Wooster. For the bushes form an effective screen. Moreover,
rendered drowsy by the unusual warmth of the afternoon, I dozed off for
some little time almost immediately I reached the island."
This wasn't the sort of thing I wanted his mind dwelling on, so I
changed the subject.
"Wet, isn't it, what?" I said.
"I had already observed it," said the Right Hon. in one of those nasty,
bitter voices. "I thank you, however, for drawing the matter to my
attention."
Chit-chat about the weather hadn't gone with much of a bang, I
perceived. I had a shot at Bird Life in the Home Counties.
"Have you ever noticed," I said, "how a swan's eyebrows sort of meet in
the middle?"
"I have had every opportunity of observing all that there is to observe
about swans."
"Gives them a sort of peevish look, what?"
"The look to which you allude has not escaped me."
"Rummy," I said, rather warming to my subject, "how bad an effect
family life has on a swan's disposition."
"I wish you would select some other topic of conversation than swans."
"No, but, really, it's rather interesting. I mean to say, our old
pal down there is probably a perfect ray of sunshine in normal
circumstances. Quite the domestic pet, don't you know. But purely and
simply because the little woman happens to be nesting...."
I paused. You will scarcely believe me, but until this moment, what
with all the recent bustle and activity, I had clean forgotten that,
while we were treed up on the roof like this, there lurked all the time
in the background one whose giant brain, if notified of the emergency
and requested to flock round, would probably be able to think up
in a couple of minutes half a dozen schemes for solving our little
difficulties.
"Jeeves!" I shouted.
"Sir?" came a faint, respectful voice from the great open spaces.
"My man," I explained to the Right Hon. "A fellow of infinite resource
and sagacity. He'll have us out of this in a minute. Jeeves!"
"Sir?"
"I'm sitting on the roof."
"Very good, sir."
"Don't say 'Very good.' Come and help us. Mr. Filmer and I are treed,
Jeeves."
"Very good, sir."
"Don't keep saying 'Very good.' It's nothing of the kind. The place is
alive with swans."
"I will attend to the matter immediately, sir."
I turned to the Right Hon. I even went so far as to pat him on the
back. It was like slapping a wet sponge.
"All is well," I said. "Jeeves is coming."
"What can he do?"
I frowned a trifle. The man's tone had been peevish, and I didn't like
it.
"That," I replied with a touch of stiffness, "we cannot say until we
see him in action. He may pursue one course, or he may pursue another.
But on one thing you can rely with the utmost confidence--Jeeves will
find a way. See, here he comes stealing through the undergrowth, his
face shining with the light of pure intelligence. There are no limits
to Jeeves's brain power. He virtually lives on fish."